Doesn’t Matter Attitude

One of the activities I miss the most about my childhood is softball.

I had the good fortune of getting to play slow pitch (which, I’m sorry, is just vastly insuperior to fast pitch softball in every way – sorry) this past summer with my company’s co-ed team, and it reminded me of all the fun memories I had playing in high school and middle school.

However, although I joined softball originally to have fun and meet new friends (which I did accomplish), I was also often frustrated at my or my team’s performance. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a super competitive perfectionist type of person, so it bothered me when people on my team didn’t care to win as much as I did, or if I myself wasn’t performing well and producing perfect results.

To top it off, I was a pitcher, so I had something to get right every pitch.

As you can probably guess, executing every play, at bat, and pitch flawlessly was nearly impossible. Softball and baseball, by nature, are sports where the GOOD players fail 66% of the time, if not more (a high batting average in the MLB is 0.333, meaning they get a hit 1/3 times at bat, and they fail 2/3 times).

You also might be thinking that softball doesn’t require a ton of skill, and you’d be wrong. It may not require as much physical motion, but it definitley demands a lot of mental energy and muscle memory. Top performing teams will spend HOURS practicing different situations and memorizing exactly what to do in each one so that when the time comes in a real game, they instantly know what to do.

We could talk about the physical aspects of softball/baseball all day, but I’m here to write about the mental side.

As a pitcher, I had to learn quickly how to have a positive mindset and attitude no matter what (and thank God for my dad, who spent countless hours being my catcher, chasing wild pitches, enduring bruised shins, and dealing with my explosive attitude while I was learning). My dad would always tell me when I was frustrated with myself:

“When you’re up, you’re up. And when you’re down….You’re up.”

That meant that even if I throw a pitch over the backstop in front of everyone on my team, the opposing team, and our fans, I wasn’t allowed to slap my glove down in frustration, slump my shoulders, stomp my foot, or roll my eyes and groan (which were all common occurances for the first year or so). If I hit a girl with a pitch, or walked 3 people in a row, or totally screwed up a pitch and let the batter hit a triple, I had to stay calm and have a good attitude. The same thing applied when I was up to bat – doesn’t matter if I strike out, hit a double, or ground out to the pitcher – my attitude had to be up.

You might be thinking that wouldn’t be easy…and it really isn’t.

Why? It’s SO much easier to give in to that feeling of frustration and anger (trust me…it is – I used to throw things when I struck out or get an ugly scowl on my face when I had a string of bad pitches).

But when you’re part of a team, and especially when you’re the leader (in this case, I was the pitcher, so I was the leader), when you’re up, your team is up. And when you’re down, your team is down too. And when your team is down, you often lose.

I had to adopt the attitude of “doesn’t matter.”

I hit a girl and walked in a run for the other team – doesn’t matter. Next pitch.

I struck out – doesn’t matter. Cheer for my teammate, who’s up next.

I flung a pitch over my catcher’s head – doesn’t matter. Next pitch.

I missed a catch in the outfield – doesn’t matter. Get the next one.

I found that when I got upset and outwardly showed it, it made it increasingly difficult to do well the next time I was given the opportunity. Things spiraled out of control until I phyisically could not do well because I was so furious.

I am so thankful to my dad for teaching me this lesson through softball, because I’ve been able to carry it into other areas of my life like work, relationships, day to day tasks, and other activities I’ve been a part of. I’m not saying it’s easy – I’ve already said it’s hard. It took lots of prayers for patience, and YEARS of discipline to even get remotely where I am now, and I’m far from perfect. However, the fact that it takes a lot more now to get me frustrated (either with inanimate objects, people, myself, or other circumstances – whether or not they’re outside my control) now than 5 years ago isn’t because I’ve stopped caring about those things.

Nope. I’m still the hard-charging, competitive, win-or-die-trying kind of girl.

I just focus more on what I can control (namely, my attitude), and remember that I’ve made it through things before and I’ll do it again. I pray all the time for patience and wisdom to lead me through my day. And I make it a game – I win if my daily circumstances and challenges don’t succeed in souring my attitude. That does NOT mean I smile and whistle through every challenge and clap my hands for joy when they’re presented to me, it just means I grit my teeth, keep up my attitude anyway, and focus on fixing it (and…I can’t whistle…so there’s also that).

“Doesn’t matter” does not mean that your challenge is trivial or isn’t important or hard – it probably is. It does not mean the thing itself doesn’t matter, but it does mean that you’re not going to let it control you. It’s okay to feel hurt, frustrated, and upset. But let that motivate you rather than get the best of you.

Because in the end, challenges can make my life hard for a bit (or maybe even for a long time), but it can’t have control over my attitude if I have anything to say about it.

On my team, we had saying – “shake it off.”

It means – “you screwed up, but that doesn’t matter at all now – what matters is the next thing, so focus on that and be ready for it with the optimism that you’ll conquer it.”

🙂

Until next time,

Hope Frances